The first time I did EMDR was after my mother died. She was my lifelong narcissistic abuser, the original architect of my
anxiety, the person who could ruin my nervous system with a sigh.
Rita didn’t go out in some poetic, cinematic way. There was no final monologue or redemption arc.
Mom dropped suddenly from a stroke. Then the universe did that thing it loves to do. It ended something without explaining it.
I walked into my therapist’s office after her death carrying grief, relief, rage, and decades of psychological shrapnel.
That was my introduction to EMDR. It worked. Not like magic. Like surgery.
The Therapist Who Didn’t Let Me Hide
I started seeing Betty Alice Erickson LPC, LMF, known as B.A., after a series of traumatic events rearranged my nervous system into permanent fight-or-flight.
She was brilliant. Exacting. Unimpressed by excuses.
Also she was the daughter of Dr. Milton Erickson, the godfather of hypnotherapy, which somehow felt like being treated by therapy royalty.
With B.A.,healing wasn’t a vibe. It was a project.
And EMDR was one of her sharpest tools.
She didn’t do therapy the way people joke about therapy now, weekly venting sessions as a lifestyle subscription.
I Had To Do The Work Or Else
“What needs work right now?” she’d ask.
Then we’d go in. Deep. Bi-monthly or monthly. Homework required. Journal mandatory.
And if I wasn’t doing the work? She’d fire me. Temporarily.
“Come back when you’re ready,” she’d say.
It was infuriating. It was also exactly what I needed.
She never let therapy become my crutch. She made it my training ground.
When Grief Broke the System
After my husband died in my arms, I stopped functioning.
The shock was devastating. There were secrets hidden behind his sudden death from a Triple A.
I had just entered my 50s. He had just turned 60.
I became a virtual zombie. My family called B.A. immediately. She scheduled an emergency appointment.
Three EMDR sessions. Three weeks. That’s all. And somehow, after those sessions, I could function again.
The transition felt almost miraculous. The sessions themselves did not.
EMDR: The Miracle That Feels Like Torture
EMDR is not soothing. It is not spa therapy.
It is being forced to hold the worst moment of your life in your mind while your body does something else—eyes moving side to side, shoulders tapping, sensations alternating.
It’s brutal. But it's worth it. Or at least I believe it really help me.
B.A. walked me back through the first moment I realized my husband was dying.
The terror. The screaming. The 911 call. Holding my beloved husband and best friend as he stopped breathing.
The rescue squad rushing in. Restarting his heart, but still…no coming back. EMDR was agonizing.
But it worked. At least it saved me from a life locked deeply in unrelenting grief.
The Tool I Took Home: Tapping
Between sessions, B.A. taught me Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT), also known as tapping. When panic hit like an emotional landmine, I could tap.
It helped detonate the attack before it detonated me. Eventually, I learned finger tapping—small enough to do in public without anyone noticing.
Decades later, I still use it. Of
EMDR Has Entered the Zeitgeist
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing has been around for decades.
But suddenly it’s everywhere.
Zocdoc reported a 79% jump in EMDR bookings in 2025.
It’s in pop culture now, too.
Mikayla Matthews does it on The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives
Nicole Kidman gets it in Babygirl, wedged somewhere between Botox and cryotherapy
Miley Cyrus swears it changed her life. “It sounds so trippy,” she told the New York Times.
“But this is medical. This is real.”
The medical establishment mostly agrees.
The WHO endorses it
The VA uses it
The APA calls it effective
More than 30 randomized controlled trials show it works about as well as CBT. So why the skepticism?
The Awkward Truth: No One Knows Exactly Why It Works
The central feature of EMDR is “bilateral stimulation.” Eye movements. Shoulder tapping. Alternating sounds.
The original theory was that it mimics REM sleep, helping the brain refile traumatic memories. Some scientists call that neurobabble with great marketing.
A simpler explanation is almost funny, your brain can’t process two hard things at once.
If you force someone to hold a traumatic memory while also doing another task, the memory loses intensity.
Not because of mystical syncing. Because your working memory gets overloaded.
There’s even “EMDR 2.0” now, which basically asks:
What if we drop the finger-waving theatrics and just tax the brain directly?
Therapy’s Uncomfortable Middle Ground
Here’s where it gets weird:
EMDR works. But many therapists don’t really know why.
They’re trained with glossy neuroscience metaphors they don’t fully understand.
Everyone loves a picture of the amygdala lighting up. It feels legitimate. Even if the mechanism is still fuzzy.
B.A. took a freestyle approach, EMDR mixed with hypnotherapy, tapping, meditation, breathwork.
Did some clients regress? Yes. Did others heal? Absolutely.
My current husband processed childhood nightmares with EMDR and EFT. After four sessions, they stopped.
Five years later, they’ve never returned.
Maybe the Mechanism Isn’t the Point
Scientists don’t fully understand SSRIs either. But they help people.
Maybe the mechanism matters less than the alliance.
The relationship. The feeling that someone is with you in the basement.
Even if you’re only tapping your body in a quiet room. B.A. used to tell me therapy is part science and part ritual.
